The Heavenly Table

51

AS SOON AS he finished helping Malone run the men through a drill on gas defense that afternoon, Lieutenant Bovard headed for the infirmary. A nurse in white showed him to the curtained-off area where an anesthetized Wesley was recuperating from his surgery. Other than a white bandage taped over the left side of his face, a cut on his chin and a small bruise on his forehead seemed to be his only other injuries. Pulling up a metal chair, the lieutenant sat down beside the bed. He heard, coming from down the hall, the evangelizing voice of the clap doctor warning another group of new recruits about the connections between syphilis germs and prostitutes and contaminated toilet seats. “Blindness, insanity, and death!” Eisner yelled as he finished the sermon. “Abstinence, gentlemen, that’s the only way you’ll survive!”

Eventually, Wesley opened his right eye and looked over, saw his lieutenant. In a voice a bit slurry with painkillers, he said slowly, “First darn time I was ever drunk in my life and look what happened.”

“Just so you know,” Bovard said, “I heard they arrested the man who attacked you.”

“Aw, I should have left him alone, him being a preacher and all, but he just kept on about…Heck, I can’t remember now. Something to do with the war, I think.”

“Has anyone been around to talk to you yet?”

“No, sir, I ain’t heard nothing other than I lost my eye.”

Bovard felt he should say something encouraging, but what could that possibly be? Disappointment filled the room. No chance for a glorious death now, the poor kid. He imagined Wesley going back to whatever dismal farm or hamlet he had come from once he was released from the brig. “I’ll ask ol’ Lloyd Beavers about hiring you on at the granary,” his father would tell him; and a few months later he’d marry some wide-hipped local girl, sealing his fate forever, though, of course, the boy wouldn’t think of it like that, at least not for the first couple of weeks. Bovard, however, could see it all: a month or two of wedded bliss wiped out in seconds by the first serious spat over something as trivial as a burned meatloaf; and then the years passing by one after another, the struggle to make ends meet, the burden of a passel of brats to feed and clothe, the inevitable decline. A lifetime after the war has ended, Wesley sitting on his stoop, his black hair turned gray, worn out with niggling worries and constant back pain and the same old same old. He clutches a brown bottle of home brew in his knotty, arthritic hand. He looks toward the horizon, the quiet evening surrounding him in a lonesome, regretful sadness. His children now gone, his wife suffering from yet another ailment. He hears her inside the house, moving about slowly, muttering to herself. His hand reaches up and touches the black eye patch. Back when it happened, everyone had said he was lucky that he didn’t have to go fight. But now, looking around his tiny square of yard at the clumps of dead grass and the old, weather-cracked tire swing hanging in the tree, he…

“Am I gonna go to prison?” Wesley suddenly said.

Jerked out of his reverie, Bovard cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not sure, but what you did, it’s considered a serious offense.”

“What if you talked to them for me? I swear the only reason I took off was my girlfriend sent me a letter saying she was gettin’ married.”

“I’m sorry, Wesley, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good.”

“No, probably not.”

“What about your family?” Bovard said. “Would you like for me to contact them, let them know what’s happened?” The nurse, a crabby, thin-lipped woman, came back and looked in at them, then went away.

“Oh, no, sir, I’d rather you didn’t. Truth is, the day I signed up was the proudest my old man’s ever been of me, and I don’t want to ruin that quite yet.”

“I understand,” Bovard said, standing up to leave. “Well, good luck.”

“I still can’t believe she’s gettin’ hitched to ol’ Froggy Conway,” Wesley said bitterly, a trace of anger starting to surface through the dope haze. “I swear to God, sir, he’s damn near as old as my granddaddy.”

“Look, I know it might be hard to imagine now, but I’d wager one of these days you’ll see it was the best thing that could have happened.”

“Well, you might be right about that. Truth is, I ain’t had much feeling for her ever since I got in her knickers last spring. For some reason, I thought it would be more fun than it was. But Froggy Conway? I’ll be the joke of the town when I go back home. Jesus. The sonofabitch looks like a hoptoad.” He bit his lip to keep from crying and looked toward the window. Just then, he almost wished the old preacher had killed him last night. There weren’t but four hundred people in Veto, which meant that he’d see her and Froggy every time he turned around. And that wasn’t the worst of it; even if people forgot Mary Ann had cheated on him, they would never forget that he’d deserted his post. Maybe he could move away, he thought, find a job in Pomeroy or Gallipolis, some town where people didn’t know him. He was getting ready to ask Bovard what he thought he should do when he realized the man was gone. Might as well get used to it, Wesley thought sadly. Nobody wanted anything to do with him now, not even his lieutenant.